I have been learning Spanish for approximately half a year. It is going well so far. I can understand basic daily conversation phrases. However, the grammar, such as tenses, is giving me tension. I began to be attracted to Spanish when I found out that there are many similar words between Indonesian and Spanish. Moreover, there are many Spanish-speaking students here at the university. Most of them come from Central and South America. It is quite interesting when I can understand what they are talking about.
In learning Spanish, I have noticed some similarities among Spanish, English, and Indonesian words. Thus, I can refer to English or Indonesian to help me remember the Spanish words, which is an advantage for me. From the grammar part as an example, Spanish’s Noun followed by Adjective is the same with that in Indonesian but the opposite of that in English, which is Adjective followed by Noun.
In this case, it is easier to remember by referring to the Indonesian style. Another example is in English, ending -ty words are ending -dad/ -ad in Spanish, such as "university" = "universidad", "liberty" = "libertad", "activity" = "actividad"; ending -ly words are ending -mente, such as "directly" = "directamente", "personally" = "personalmente", "rationally" = "racionalmente".
I like to watch Telenovela as part of my Spanish learning. Watching movie is one of the best ways to learn languages. Apart from entertaining, learners can also observe how the phrase is used in a certain situation, and how the facial emotion attaches to it, as well as intonation and word stress.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share this article if you like. If you have any opinions, please leave a comment. I love reading them.
Photo credit